Monday 08-06-2026 - 09:42

Written by Leah Buttery

Leah Buttery is your 2025/26 Wellbeing Officer

 

Double Trouble! Leah and David dive into harm reduction 

Meet David, the incoming Wellbeing Officer. He’s taking over from me at the end of June, and what better way to start his induction than by taking him along with me to the National Student Drug and Alcohol Conference!

So, on Tuesday 12th May, we hopped on an early morning train to Manchester and made our way down to Manchester Met’s SU building, where SOSUK was hosting the conference.  

We spent the morning learning about what harm reduction really means, and how to translate that into action. We heard from the NUS, staff from treatment services, and student wellbeing services who have run successful harm reduction campaigns at their universities. They told us about the projects they’ve run, the challenges they faced, and how they kept students and young people at the centre of their work.  

 

 

Then the first set of workshops began – David and I decided that we weren’t ready to be separated yet, so we both attended the session called “how can we create effective harm reduction communications for students.” We learned a lot from speakers from UWE and UWE SU about how they developed effective an effective comms strategy to educate students about how to keep themselves safe when using drugs and reduce stigma around seeking support for drugs and alcohol misuse.  

After some lovely vegan sandwiches (I’m a huge chickpea supporter) and several cups of coffee, we heard from other institutions that had achieved SOSUK’s Drug and Alcohol Impact Accreditation and spoke to some stallholders at the event, including Lancashire based WithYou, and The Benzo Research Project, which is a young-person-led charity.  

In the afternoon, David and I made the brave decision to split up, heading our separate ways into different workshops. *gasp* 

Whilst David headed into “How can campuses benefit from developing on-campus drug and alcohol support”, I decided to pop into the workshop on “how can we involve students in our work on drugs and alcohol?”

 

 

In my workshop, I heard from two first year students from Bath Spa and recent graduates from MMU about their experiences of being involved in drug and alcohol related work on campuses through courses and internships offered at their universities. We then got the opportunity to ask them questions about how they got engaged and the skills they developed from the experience.  

 

About his workshop, David said:  

“Getting to listen to researchers from across the country talk about how universities can put in more effort for students struggling with addiction was incredibly encouraging. If it can be done there, why not bring it here too? For example: 

• Uni of Teesside has a 'Students in Recovery Lead', 
• UCL has a 'specialist NHS mental health service', 
• Uni of Birmingham has introduced flats for students in recovery.  

These are all positive starts elsewhere and am hopeful to incorporate support for students here at Lancaster too!” 

 

We had a great time in Manchester, and I’m hopeful that we’ll be able to use the insight we’ve gained to make some positive change for our students here at Lancaster.